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The Immersive Experience of All the President’s Men
The representation of journalism has always been a vital part of Hollywood since the early days of slapstick and screwball comedies in the 1930s. The display of journalism as a profession often depended on the stakes involved in a specific sociopolitical context. While in the 1930s and 40s, newsrooms were presented for laughs and satire,…
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The Grapes of Wrath: How John Ford captured Steinbeck’s words
Mostly known for his westerns set in the vivid and majestic Monument Valley, John Ford has always been considered one of the most important filmmakers of all time, detailing the lives of those that rarely had their stories put on the silver screen. His were the stories of human perseverance against all odds, man’s quest…
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The alliance of man and nature in Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala
Despite arguably being Japan’s most famous and commercially successful filmmaker of his time, Akira Kurosawa found himself at the mercy of producers and investors who – by the time the 1970s came around – hesitated in funding any more of his projects. Kurosawa’s career seemed to be over by that point following a series of…
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Minority Report: Spielberg and the freedom of choice
The first time I saw Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report I was in my teens and part of an English class taught by Mr. King. Mr. King was arguably my first mentor, a teacher who taught for pleasure and who drew satisfaction from seeing his students evolve as people, not just students. He would often push…
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Why you should revisit Lost in Translation
More and more often I find myself coming back to Lost in Translation. When asked by friends or relatives, what I consider to be my favorite film, I feel as if I am impulsively compelled to mention Sofia Coppola’s Oscar-winning film of 2003. Yet, whenever I have to explain why that is, I am at…
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Eat Drink Man Woman: Ang Lee’s hidden gem
Few filmmakers have shown the range Ang Lee has over the span of the last thirty years. Think about it, the same man who is responsible for Hulk gave us Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, among many others. In fact, the Taiwanese director rose…
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Birdman: How Iñárritu adapted Raymond Carver’s prose
Upon its release in 2014, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman (Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was met simultaneously with critical acclaim and popular confusion. Audiences seemed to feel belittled and made fun of by a movie that focused on what one of the characters refers to as the “cultural genocide” of filmmaking – caped superheroes…
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The forgotten brilliance of Harvey Keitel
You’d be hard pressed to find a more expressive face than Harvey Keitel’s. The kind of face the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy had and to which they owed a huge chunk of their success. The kind of face that – had Keitel been born thirty years earlier – would have made him…
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Duck, You Sucker! Sergio Leone’s belief in friendship
Few directors are as consistent and determined in sticking to the theme of friendship throughout their filmography as Sergio Leone was. The Italian filmmaker behind such classics like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Once Upon a Time in America was always – no matter what – a great believer in the power…
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The real-life tragedy of John Huston’s Misfits
Few movies can reflect and predict – without knowing, of course – the real-life tragedy of the people involved in their making as accurately as John Huston’s off-beat and fatalistic film from 1961, The Misfits, starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter and Eli Wallach. Huston’s film is drenched in the tragic fate…
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